Read Across America Day
by IncurablePeppermint
Summary: After the Valentine's day incident Tina has erotic friend-fiction writers block and finds herself unable to properly daydream her way through math classes. (Tina Belcher x Becky Krespe) Cross-Posted from AO3


Tina sits in front of her collection of friend-fiction and tries to pick one out she's interested in reading over again. She's had trouble with it lately. Tina x Jimmy Pesto Jr. x Jonas but Jonas is a zombie with only one arm so he can't be a jerk about his melodica anymore because he can't play it alone. Tina x Nathan on a horse-farm that they own and they've bred pink and blue into the horses manes. Tina x… No. Nothing. She hasn't even felt much need to _write _this stuff anymore.

Well, no, she's written a little bit. They were weird for her, though. Not really butt-focused or boy-focused or written with a purpose. She opens an unlabeled notebook and chews the cap of her pen. Between words that have been scribbled out and tiny, unskilled margin-drawings of horses is a description of Becky Krespe. Just a description of her and nothing else. She's gotten her braces off, recently. She's got soft hands. Her hair is cushy and wavy like lines of sheared wool.

"Ow."

She accidentally bites her tongue while chewing the pen-cap. It was only last week when she couldn't enjoy her valentines day because Jimmy Jr. decided to take Becky on a date instead of her. But Jimmy was a jerk to both of them, really. To every girl, all the time, really. Tina has found that her fiction involving Jimmy Jr. has been slowly moving away from her favorites shelf and into the closet-box, where she usually keeps only failed writings or crushes that have totally passed.

Maybe her crush_ has _finally passed. She leans her face on a hand and stares out the window. After so long, after years of pining and hundreds of daydreamed kisses, maybe she just doesn't like him anymore. Almost zombie-like, Tina moves from her desk to her bed and splays out to look up at the ceiling. It feels like the end of an era. Like a show she always waited for updates on finally got a finale, but it wasn't a satisfying finale.

She groans. She grabs a pillow and turns onto her side to hug it close to her belly. What is she supposed to do with the day if she's not got a crush to keep her occupied? She should've known this was coming. The boxed friend-fictions, her lack of ability to daydream about Jimmy Jr. during math, the way she doesn't feel a flutter in her chest when he passes by anymore. It's all because he had to go and be a big jerk!

But that's not all of it or else she'd be able to read her other fictions. She wrote and read her fictions about Jonas after _he _was a jerk and zombies after getting scared by that age inappropriate movie and crawling into bed with Louise for comfort. There's got to be something else going on and she has to figure it out or at the very least she won't be able to tune out boring school lectures.

There has to be someone with the right experience for this kind of problem. Mom and Dad don't really like her talking about her friend-fiction in public or private, so that's a no. Gene is still on his field trip. Louise will make gagging noises at her, but maybe she'll help afterwards. Tina sits up and pounds her fist into her hand determinedly, then fixes her glasses on her face and slips off the bed to go find her sister.

It doesn't take long, she's sitting on the couch watching television. She doesn't seem particularly interested, though. In fact, when Tina steps in she clicks the television off with the remote and clasps her hands over her stomach. "You've finally come to me for advice, hmm?" she asks, doing her best impression of a mob boss, "You need me, Tina? Need my help?"

Tina finds herself suddenly nervous. "I uh… Well, yeah. Were you expecting me or something?" Louise laughs dryly, then nods.

"Of course, Tina. A girl knows her sister."

"What do you…? How do you…?" Tina starts to hyperventilate before Louise comes over and puts a hand on her back.

"Whoa, whoa, Tina. I'm just messing with you."

"Why were you expecting me, then?" Tina asks, starting to calm down a little.

"Well that Valentines day thing wasn't long ago at all and since I go through your room when you're away I know you've been tossing a bunch of your gross zombie butt writing into that box in your closet."

"Okay, alright. Okay." She takes a moment to groan, then takes a breath. So quickly the words merge together, Tina says, "I can't read or write or think about Jimmy Jr. anymore because he was such a big jerk but that doesn't make sense because I still write about all kinds of jerks, so many jerks. I just make the jerks zombies so they're less of a jerk or write the jerk out of them so they aren't a jerk when I think about them! But this is different, this is weird! I haven't been able to write any fiction since Valentines day!" She puts a hand on her chest, "That actually just felt good to get out, I think I'm okay now."

Louise puts a hand in front of Tina, stopping her from leaving the room. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Tina. You've been writing in your journals, I've seen you. And heard you. You make a weird noise, like… A _really _weird noise." Tina thinks for a moment, then nods.

"Well, I've been _trying _to write, but nothing is happening. Like, I get to a description of someone but nothing else, no meat."

"No butts."

"Yeah, no butts."

"That is weird for you. Usually you _only _write the meat, or that's what I got when you read your work out loud for school." Louise thinks for a moment, then goes to the home phone and types in a number. "Hey, you got some free time? Yeah, yeah I got the stuff. It'll be free if you can help me out with something. Alright, meet me here." She hangs up and then heads for her room, Tina following.

"What was that?"

"That? That was the sound of you _owing _me." Louise grabs a shoebox out from under her bed and it shakes a little. She tucks it under her arm and motions for Tina to follow her downstairs, then she sits down on the stoop outside their front door to wait. Tina stands beside her awkwardly, hovering a little.

"Okay but what's in the box, you can tell me that, right?"

"Feral hamsters."

"That makes sense. Oh, wait. No, it doesn't. Why do you have hamsters?"

"_ Feral _hamsters," Louise repeats, "And they're for putting in a meter maid's car later. You'll probably have to help with that."

"How will this help me with my problem?"

"It won't, it's just hilarious."

"Darnit Louise, tell me what this is about."

"Language, Tina. I'm getting you advice from someone who is more worldly than myself."

"Who?"

A pink limousine pulls up and parks haphazardly in front of the two girls. The window rolls down to reveal Nat's somewhat familiar face. "You got the goods, Louise? Stephanie has really been annoying me with this whole spiel about how you can't only pay on one meter if you park your limousine across four parking spots. I'm only parking one car!"

Louise walks over and hands the box to Nat through the open window, then heads to the back and opens the door, climbing in. She motions for Tina to join her, who does after a nervous groan. Nat peeks into the box then hurriedly closes. "Oh yeah, those are some primo hamsters Louise. Ya did good. Now what is it you needed?"

"Tina doesn't have a crush on Jimmy Jr. anymore."

"That big jerk with the speech impediment? Of course not, I dunno why anyone would after that. Is that all?"

"No, no. She writes like… Romance stories, but about her friends. And she can't do it anymore since this Jimmy Jr. thing happened."

"Ooh, writers' block? Tough break, kiddo."

"Well, I wrote some stuff. Just nothing good."

"That's still somethin', what've ya written?"

"I uh… Wrote some descriptions of people. Of Becky Krespe."

Louise looks over at Tina curiously, "That chick that was on the date with Pesto?"

Nat nods, "Well, of course you wrote about her."

"So you do know about this? How do I get back to writing and daydreaming and-"

"Whoa, whoa. Hold your ponies, honey. You _are _writing. You're just writing about uh… What was her name?"

"Becky Krespe, but if I'm writing about Becky Krespe it's not erotic friend-fiction and I can't daydream about it instead of thinking about equations."

"It's not erotic? Ya looked at her like my last boyfriend looked at lasagne."

"What do you mean?"  
"Well, like she's the last piece of lasagne in the world and it's your favorite food, that's what I mean. That's how you looked at her. I figured that's why you didn't end up throwing the stink bombs right away, because you were hiding a crush on her the whole time."

"Oh yeah. You kinda were, Tina. Like the people in those films mom watches at three am when she thinks no one knows she's eating frozen yogurt."

Tina frowns, then clasps her hands and rubs her thumbs together. "You guys really think I looked at Becky like a lasagne? Or like Mom's yogurt movies?"

Louise and Nat respond in what would be unison, if one of them didn't says "Totally," while the other responded, "Definitely." Tina groans and puts her face in her hands.

"What's wrong? You got a crush now, that's what you wanted. I think." Louise starts to hunt around in the cushions for loose change, which she divides into two piles. "You can write your friend stories and something about math." Triumphantly, Louise pulls a wrapped piece of candy out of the seats and quickly puts it in her mouth.

"Hey! The deal was we'd go halfsies on everything you find in the seats if you clean them out for me, bunny. Ya can't just eat the whole candy."  
"I can too! You get the wrapper, that's half."

"Not unless they have the little comics on them it's not."

"There's a knock-knock joke and a picture of a horse."

"Then you're off the hook, _this _time. Next time you owe me a nickel."

Tina half-watches this unfold for a minute or so. Louise and Nat have both decided that her problem has been solved, but it's only half-solved. If it's even solved that much. She likes _Becky Krespe _. She hasn't liked a girl before and she doesn't really know what to do in order to pursue this feeling. To write or daydream about it. If she's supposed to think about boobs or if it's ok to think about butts or if she's ever paid attention to Becky's butt. Becky likes to wear skirts, so that kind of removes the butt aspect. And she doesn't really have much in the way of boobs. Does that matter? It's not a butt or a long neck or a lisp attracting Tina to Becky.

"C'mon Tina, Nat has a drunken housewife to pick up in ten minutes, let's go, go, go." Louise grabs her sister's arm to pull her out of the limo. Change and various tiny lost items jingle in her dress pockets as they climb out. "You call me first if you need any animals, you hear me Nat? I better not be your third call next time."

"Yeah, yeah. You've proved your mettle, Bunny. You're first on the list next time. Have fun with your girlfriend, Tina," Nat calls before driving off.

Girlfriend. Girlfriend. That sounds nice. Sitting in front of her at a nice restaurant, in her blue dress, with a sweet smile. That was it, the way she was looking at Jimmy Jr. at the restaurant. That's what did it to Tina, gave her this crush. She looked happy and sweet and all Tina wanted was to make sure she kept smiling like that. Even if it meant she herself had to be sad, had to give up her revenge plan. After that was when she started thinking about Becky Krespe more. About her hands and her hair and how her teeth don't have metal on them anymore so it wouldn't be dangerous to kiss her.


End file.
